People shouldn't forget ETH has a personal relationship with the player and the club knows De Jong agent very well, we are still in this its because we are sure its happening, we haven't even been linked with anyone else....its still a matter of when and and not if.
Frenkie de Jong | The last muppeting lap
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
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It is a bit strange how we had the news about a broad fee being agreed about a week ago and there’s been no movement since. Surely that’s the hard part, negotiating the add ons should be a lot simpler no?
I imagine that FdJ will want firm assurances about when he'll be paid all the outstanding money that is owed to him before he goes anywhere. Given he isn't requesting the transfer and has publicly stated that he wants to stay, I'd imagine he'll be due some loyalty payments as well.
Once he moves Barca will be far less motivated to pay up.
I'd be surprised if this isn't the reason for the delays.
Once he moves Barca will be far less motivated to pay up.
I'd be surprised if this isn't the reason for the delays.
Happens with every big transfer we’ve done in the past few years. Builds up then goes dead for weeks.
Under normal circumstances yes, but Barca are a shady club.
This would happen for sure, you can see the Timber case when we realize he didn't want to come we moved on, let's see if De Jong joins up with Barca for preseason.
Apparently the clubs kick started its pre season yesterday but internationals were given extra time off.
I would imagine Barca need every penny and we are happy to play it out and squeeze them, the narrative from Barca is pretty clear they are trying to paint him into a corner of take a pay cut or go, when in truth even if he did take a pay cut they would still probably want to offload him. This will happen eventually IMO.
Would they be motivated if he stays? They’ll just agree to a lower contract and make up what they owe to what he should be on anyway…
All smoke and mirrors. If De Jong and his agent have a brain they leave, get a new contract on parity with what he earns now, and take Barca for what they owe separately.
Blurring a reduced contract and monies owed is very messy and more likely to result in a loss in the longer term.
The narrative about pay cuts is vastly exaggerated. Most of these were deferrals, not cuts. Their "legends", Pique, Alba and Busquets, all earn a fortune. At least so far they havn't given up all that much. Barca already did run a smear campaign against Dembele. He didn't give a feck and it had zero consequences. Barca are even trying to extend his contract now, but just like with FdJ, he holds all the power. Frenke is in an even stronger position, because he is on a long-term deal. The money that is at stake here is pretty substantial even for top level footballers. He is not giving up millions of € because a few papers write mean things for a few weeks.
FdJ has all the power to decide about his future. If he wants to leave, Barca and United will find an agreement and if he doesn't want to leave, he is going to stay; probably with some kind of symbolic renegotiation so everyone can save face.
When you want to buy top players, the most important thing is to convince the player. The rest follows. Sometimes, like in the case of Sancho, this might even take a year, but once a player is committed to join another club, its usually going to happen. Barca still would like Frenkie to leave, but its not their decision.
It's definitely happening. Barca need to sell and we're desperate for a player of his skillset in midfield to play the way ETH wants. It could be drawn out another week or two but we have a free run at it and he's our #1 target, so we just need to be patient and not let Barca take the piss over the add-ons. We're already offering them a fair guaranteed fee considering the high wages FDJ will demand.
Seems very quiet on de Jong.
Not sure if this is the just a dead deal now. If no deal this week I do not see this happening.
Not sure if this is the just a dead deal now. If no deal this week I do not see this happening.
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People getting cold feet is rather hilarious. We live in this age for constant updates, but then when you get constant updates you complain nothing has changed. Well yeah because it’s the same as yesterday.
Just have some fecking patience.
Just have some fecking patience.
Dead deal?
Have I missed the United brief saying that were walking away? If you see such a brief then the thread can be locked and we can move on. Until then nothings changed and negotiations continue
As soon as everything is all done with payment and structure with Barcelona, this will move fast.
Just feels like we are no further down the line with this deal than a week ago
How long do you reckon that will take
If you're smart and in a precarious financial position, then you plan for every eventuality. We don't know if they've negotiated with us as a fall back option in the event that they can't raise the funds or he won't accept a salary reduction/renegotiate money owed. I don't think I'm overthinking it as they have much better financial people than me trying to sort their finances out and I think they'll be planning every last cent of their money.
It would also help explain the long delays in the negotiations and why our team are apparently perplexed at why they are happily negotiating the sale but then taking a firm stance in public.
Never been less interested or invested in a potential signing. Just want a definitive yay or nay asap so we can move on and try to sign someone who would be more keen and have less baggage with his current club. I’m putting a lot of faith in ETH having been able to convince him but I’m highly doubtful. FDJ will need to be dragged out of Barcelona.
In all honesty this window has been very underwhelming thus far especially considering how unbelievably bad we were last season and how far we are behind the top teams in general. Even if we get this Martinez in, it just smacks of squad players and I was hoping for at least 3 nailed on starters that are way better than what we already have.
I definitely see us starting the season (in less than 5 weeks) with a lot weaker starting 11 especially without Matic, Pogba and Ronaldo.
In all honesty this window has been very underwhelming thus far especially considering how unbelievably bad we were last season and how far we are behind the top teams in general. Even if we get this Martinez in, it just smacks of squad players and I was hoping for at least 3 nailed on starters that are way better than what we already have.
I definitely see us starting the season (in less than 5 weeks) with a lot weaker starting 11 especially without Matic, Pogba and Ronaldo.
No idea, but we would not make so much effort for nothing. We are going to end up signing him.
Seriously...how blatant is this? This is the Laporta press machine in full spin trying to get FDJ out the door. Big article with eye watering numbers, graphs, the whole works. How anyone can take Laporta with a straight face after this, especially the pearl-clutching crowd from a few days ago, is beyond me. The man is a bottom of the barrel politician. FDJ is either saying at barca and Laporta is going to ask him to pay to play
or he's walking.People saying this is like the Fabregas saga, am pretty sure it's nothing like it.
In that saga, Barca had absolutely no intention of selling and flat out refused our offers straight away. Whether the player wanted to come, it's likely he did, but Barca just didn't want to sell at all, even going as far as to write to United telling them to stay away if i remember correctly. This time Barca DO want to sell, but they want to sell under their terms and nothing less
In that saga, Barca had absolutely no intention of selling and flat out refused our offers straight away. Whether the player wanted to come, it's likely he did, but Barca just didn't want to sell at all, even going as far as to write to United telling them to stay away if i remember correctly. This time Barca DO want to sell, but they want to sell under their terms and nothing less
We need to set a firm deadline and walk away from the deal by midweek so that an alternative signing can be done for our preseason tour. It's obvious that Barca are trying to get him to reduce his compensation. They have to decide if our money, and the fact that he will no longer be part of their wage bill, is the better deal.
All this is you speculating, you're taking Laporta words seriously when he's known to be a liar.
You don't try to sign a Barca player unless they want to sell, if there wasn't a deal to be done we'll have moved on a while back.
Feels very Fabregas so far. I hope we have a backup in mind who we can get done quickly.
So, the situation...
We are desperate to get Frenkie
Barca need to sell for financial reasons but publicly are saying they want to keep him, as long as he'll take a pay cut
Frenkie doesn't want to leave and doesn't particularly want to come to United, although Ten Hag would be a positive for him
So, it all boils down to whether Frenkie would rather leave for more money than he's currently on or stay for less money than he's currently on
Does that sound about right?
We are desperate to get Frenkie
Barca need to sell for financial reasons but publicly are saying they want to keep him, as long as he'll take a pay cut
Frenkie doesn't want to leave and doesn't particularly want to come to United, although Ten Hag would be a positive for him
So, it all boils down to whether Frenkie would rather leave for more money than he's currently on or stay for less money than he's currently on
Does that sound about right?
Can walk away get a funny word filter? I’m so sick of reading that phrase.
Quite a few people in here would make terrible negotiatiors.
Replace with ‘shit the bed’?
The option for less money at Barcelona isn't an option for Frenkie according to Romano
He must have a very expensive lifestyle. Or he loves money more than Barca...welcome to Manchester
Personally, I really can't see us getting De Jong, I just don't think the player is keen on the idea
The only 'alternative' I've heard rumours about, would be Ruben Neves.
I think he gets a lot of undeserved critisism on here, I think he is much better than some give him credit for.
He is already on an insane contract. I doubt he would be getting offered much of a pay rise from us, if at all.
at this rate he's either coming to Manchester or Laporta is going to con him into paying barca to play. Genuinely, with these leaks, if he takes another massive pay cut he will be at Barca till they void his contract to go away.
I am not against Neves but certainly not the same level as De Jong, also he is our managers top target so it would be undermining him too.
Like so many have said IF we were walking away from this then the usual Utd journos would have been briefed on that already.
I feel sorry for him to be fair.
He signed a contract, then had 2 pay cuts according to an earlier posted tweet, now they want him to have another pay cut and quite probably relinquish his deferred payments. It's a joke, they're desperate for him to go whilst making it look like they want him to stay. Works out great for Barca, they can say they wanted him to stay but he's so obsessed with money and wouldn't take another pay cut to stay at the club he loves, or at least said he loves
if he wasn't keen, why would we have gone this far to persue him? ask yourself that.
The club isn't stupid. ETH isn't stupid. Clearly we've asked his agent and got the green light.
Is his first choice to stay at Barca? sure. Is he going to stay there on a 40% paycut when they are telling him he's not wanted? no.
Be patient.
Yeah don't see it comparable to Di Maria situation because player has a relationship with manager, also the Fabregas one is daft because that deal never got this far down the line.
De Jong's questionable availability not withstanding, Ruben Neves is hardly what I'd call impressive. And Wolves will demand some ridiculous fee for him, which he will never be able to justify. We will be up shit creek without a paddle if we have to resort to Neves to sort our midfield.
Let me stop you right there. They are.
Di Maria played fine here until he fell out with LVG and his house got burgled. After that point it all fell apart.
Sure there are risks, but ETH knows the player already very well. I don't think they will be similar.
Di Maria was fine with leaving Real... he wanted to go to PSG right from the off if i remember correctly.
They didn't want him, or couldn't afford him at that time so his only option was going to United. I'm pretty sure his plan all along was to use United to get to PSG, the robbery and the sorts only helped that plan.
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